Stream of consciousness of an idea - Inspired in part my irish myth and in part by Lindsey Stirling the dancing violinist and maybe a bit of the Devil went down to georgia. I am picturing something like Strokes of the bow across the strings interfering with enemies attacks and grabbing on to their heart accelerating it gradually throughout the fight till it bursts.. .... Make em dance to death. Blowing up their heart at the finale.... During the song you are controlling their steps with forced dancing which interferes with and disrupts their attacks. You arent parrying their attacks but rathers spinning them in to a pirouette at the right moment. You arent inducing them to move a particular direction your music is controlling the direction of their moves.

I am wondering if the bard is the right class

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Born To Be Kings and Heros -- From the Ashes Phoenix“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” - Lazarus Long via Robert Heinlein.

One suspects Lugh Long-hand Samildánach (a wright/carpenter, a sailor, a smith/bronze craftsman, a healer, a champion, a harpist, a poet/historian, a sorcerer, cupbearer) would agree.

You could flavor forced movement as forcing an enemy to dance, similarly attack and defense buffs and debuffs can be flavored as disrupting enemies or inspiring allies. You can take it farther with daze or stun or other effects.

Now the hard part is finding the powers that have the right effects. Seems like a bit of a rewrite of the bard is in order. Instrument as implement, a few new level appropriate powers that have the right effects.

Born To Be Kings and Heros -- From the Ashes Phoenix“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” - Lazarus Long via Robert Heinlein.

One suspects Lugh Long-hand Samildánach (a wright/carpenter, a sailor, a smith/bronze craftsman, a healer, a champion, a harpist, a poet/historian, a sorcerer, cupbearer) would agree.

Not only do Leaders often feel like "Controller Lite", the Arcane Power Source often has very "controller-ish" powers.

I think you'd have to take some powers and maybe reskin them. You might also want to come up with some new powers.

One thing that strikes me is the idea that the music would have the power to cause the attacker to miss with a weapon or power. I like this. There are a couple of ways to do this, I'm sure. My first thought is to have a Trait wherein any attack with the Weapon keyword would actually be rolled against Will instead of AC (or whatever other defense they may target). Presumably, Will would be the highest defense. Or perhaps the Trait would give a penalty to any attacks with the Weapon keyword as long as the target is playing music.

The concept of the bowing of strings accelerating their heart could be done by a Close burst power that targets Will and a hit causes the loss of a healing surge. And, as per the system, if there are no HS left to lose, they lose hp instead.

You could do other powers that would cause forced movement, making them dance in a particular direction. And possibly have a power that would Daze the target (Save Ends), since the music is directing their attention away from the battle.

I'm thinking that some of these powers would have the Charm keyword. They probably would all target Will, too, as that seems to make sense.

nods, although I could see building a hybrid perhaps a Bard/Mage to up the control factor and similar though building a new bard class build might give it that pure new thing feel....

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Born To Be Kings and Heros -- From the Ashes Phoenix“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” - Lazarus Long via Robert Heinlein.

One suspects Lugh Long-hand Samildánach (a wright/carpenter, a sailor, a smith/bronze craftsman, a healer, a champion, a harpist, a poet/historian, a sorcerer, cupbearer) would agree.